Even a discount has to wait for you

Before your vacation, you agreed with your operations director that he would handle routine orders himself and call only about serious problems. On the very first day, he messages you about a discount for a regular client.

You tell him he knows the rules. He’s had the authority to approve discounts on orders like this for ages.

“That’s what I did yesterday. You told me to take it back.”

Yesterday, you did think the client would have accepted a smaller discount. Your director followed the rules, but you told him to negotiate further. He had to call the buyer again and explain that the agreed terms had changed.

Today, the client has come back asking for the original discount. Your director has forwarded the request to you. He doesn’t want to risk approving it a second time.

Your wife is ready to go to the beach. You ask her to wait five minutes. Then a little longer: now there are messages about a contractor and a delayed shipment. She leaves without you.

You’re angry with your director. He’s experienced, you pay him well, and you specifically gave him authority while you’re away. But the longer you scroll through the chat, the more of your own messages you see: “Show me first.” “You were supposed to get my approval before sending that.” “I wouldn’t have done it that way.”

You can explain every intervention. Here, you wanted to save money; there, to avoid an argument with a client. The result is that your director has to guess which decision you’ll overturn next.

Now it’s easier for him to ask you first. Exactly what you keep complaining about.

The Ruler archetype describes a drive to create order and security. A leader assigns responsibilities, sets rules, and takes responsibility. It goes too far when someone else making a decision becomes a source of anxiety in itself: you haven’t checked it personally, so something could go wrong.

Yesterday’s discount broke no rules. You stepped in because you would have negotiated differently. When this keeps happening, employees learn a simple lesson: formal authority isn’t enough. The boss still has the final say.

Some decisions do need approval, of course: a major risk, spending beyond the budget, a legal issue. An employee’s independence also comes with responsibility. But a discount within a limit you set yourself is already part of his job.

You ask your director to confirm yesterday’s terms with the client. You write that decisions within the agreed rules no longer need your approval. If something falls outside those limits, he should call. You’ll review the other decisions after your vacation.

Then you type, “Just send me everything you approve.” You look at the message for a while and delete it.

This turns out to be harder than announcing that you’re delegating. You’ll have to live with someone choosing a different option without treating that as a reason to step in. Your wife is already coming back from the beach. You never made it there together.

There’s something here worth understanding about yourself: why taking the work back feels safer than letting someone else do it their own way. Read more about NeuroIAM’s approach to self-understanding at Personal Compass.